New Japanese culture "Kyaraben"

Kyaraben or charaben(キャラ弁), a shortened form of character bento(キャラクター弁当,kyarakutā bentō), is a style of elaborately arranged bento which features food decorated to look like people, characters from popular media, animals, and plants. Japanese homemakers often spend time devising their families' meals, including their boxed lunches.Originally, a decorated bento was intended to interest children in their food and to encourage a wider range of eating habits. It has now evolved to the point where national contests are held- From Wikipedia

When I was a kid, Mom made lunch box for me to take it to school. It wasn't like Kyaraben but she had used different vegetable to put some different colors and looked beautiful. Many kids showed off own lunch box to each other.

If you are interested to make own Kyaraben yourself, you can take lessons in Japan. Nagomi Kitchen

This Blog is all in Japanese but the blogger shows how to make Kyaraben using many pictures so I think you can understand.Tanjikan de kawaii Kyaraben※ If you see the this kind of characters "→作り方" on top of the pictures on the web, clik the orange letter, it's gonna take you to another link to "How to" page.

These day Kyaraben is very popular in another country as well, I think you can find many English web.

About the Author

I design and create my own products by combining Australian and Japanese traditional ingredients which make my products very unique. I also design and create my own special packaging based on Japanese traditional wrapping method "Origata" for each product.